


The Kitchen Debate

by anxiousAnarchist



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-24 00:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8349571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousAnarchist/pseuds/anxiousAnarchist
Summary: Strangelove and the Boss become a publicity stunt.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [uumuu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/gifts).



> Apologies to [mightyscrub's bosslove fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7927555/chapters/18116569#main), from which I stole Strangelove's name -- it just works too well.

"In America, we like to make life easier for women." 

\-- Richard Nixon, July 24, 1959 

 

 

 

 

“They want us to do _what_?” asks Jackie, thinking that surely this must be one of the Boss’s practical jokes.

 

But no -- the woman sitting across from her looks serious as ever, the occasionally mischievous glint in her eyes absent, and she’s almost distracted, Jackie thinks, with whatever logistical issues are roiling around in her head.

 

“They want us to go to the Soviet Union,” says the Boss. “They want us to make nice.”

 

“Won’t they think we’re spies?” asks Jackie. “I’d certainly assume we were spies.”

 

“Of course they’ll think we’re spies,” says the Boss. She shrugs, rolls her shoulders minutely, relaxes back in the cold metal chair. “Our superiors and Soviet officials have decided that we’re to meet with different Soviet scientists and cosmonauts -- our counterparts on the other side of the curtain -- to foster a sense of friendship and community between our two countries.  And, of course, we’re the best choices to be representatives for the United States.”

 

Jackie thinks this might be the silliest thing the Boss has ever said. Of course, there’s the fact that the Americans hadn’t been able to cover up the Boss’s successful flight, not been able to recast the role of first American in space with a more suitable figure, so she guesses that makes a certain amount of sense. Not that the Boss herself received credit for the flight, but rather some woman made of smoke and mirrors and hastily fabricated backstories. A woman with the Boss’s face, but none of her vitality, none of her steely hard-earned surety. So -- Jackie understands why the Boss gets assigned to this. But not why she does.

 

“They’re not my superiors, your military,” says Jackie. “I’m a scientist, not a soldier.”

 

The Boss smiles, but it’s the smile of that woman NASA carved out and set before the newspapers and the politicians and the public, the smile of a woman trying very hard to hide the fact that she knows so much more than you do, hide the fact that she pities you for it, hide the fact that she can see where all of this is going, plot it like a flight trajectory.

 

“They’re going to make me wear a dress, aren’t they?’”

 

* * *

 

 

“She can’t wear pants” -- that’s the first thing one of their handlers says when he sees her.

 

* * *

 

 

Boss teaches Jackie Russian with the careful patience of a woman born without a patient bone in her body, the patience of a woman who'd had to cultivate the skill brick by brick.

 

“It'll do,” she says.

 

“Hardly,” says Jackie, frustrated with her lack of acumen with words in general, her lack of aptitude with foreign languages in particular. Neither of them are women of words.

 

* * *

 

The Boss and Jackie meet scientists. The Boss and Jackie meet politicians. The Boss smiles and it looks like someone else's smile carefully grafted on,  Jackie refuses to smile. They don't want her for her charming personality. 

 

Sometimes the Boss disappears and comes back to the hotel late at night, tired but herself, and Jackie puts a hand on her arm but doesn't know what else she can do, doesn't know how to reach out and touch this part of the Boss's life. She feels like she should be afraid of this woman, sometimes, of what she can do and where she's been and what her government might ask her to do (the lingering thought -- what if she's ordered to kill _me_?) but Jackie can't muster up the mental resources. The Boss is herself, whatever else she is, and Jackie's seen her vulnerable in a way that makes her feel not power over her, but a certain amount of safety. 

 

* * *

 

 

“Why would they let us trounce around in this utterly shameless show of American propaganda?” asks Jackie.

 

The Boss takes off the earrings they’d given her and sets them on the dresser. “The Soviet people, I suspect, aren’t all going to learn about our visit,” she says. “We’ll be a short item in a few papers, perhaps a brief segment on the news. Meanwhile, Gagarin is a national hero, is being forged into a national hero. They’ll name cities after him and we will be footnotes in their history books.”

 

“But not our own,” says Jackie.

 

“Perhaps,” says the Boss. “A better way to ask the same question: what do they gain by allowing this? There are many answers, many dimensions to the way they might see our presence as a thing they could turn to their favor, but the biggest potential gain for the Soviets is simple: access to us. More specifically, access to you.”

 

“To me?”

 

“Well, why not? If there’s anything both our countries are hungry for its rocket scientists. Especially young impressionable rocket scientists, with chips on their shoulders and shaky allegiances. You’re already a stranger in a strange land, it might not take more than a tiny nudge. You’re an easy target, an attractive target.”

 

* * *

 

They let her keep the coat, after a lengthy debate about the appropriateness of the color red. “It’s in _your flag_ ,” says Jackie, who’s never felt this British in her entire life.

 

* * *

 

 

One night, the Boss disappears. Doesn’t come back for days. She’s fallen ill, under the weather, certainly don’t want to get any of our friends sick, that’s what Jackie’s handlers tell her to tell other people. She appreciates that they don’t try to sell her on that horseshit, respect her enough to not belittle her intelligence in such a way.

One night,the Boss comes back. She’s especially late, especially grimy -- there’s no traces of blood anywhere, but Jackie feels the ghost of violence lingering on her. She’s dressed like herself, but it makes Jackie’s blood run cold.

“Do you know what this war is about?” asks the Boss, her back turned away. She’s pulled outa  bag from under the hotel bed, is extracting various items from various pockets Jackie can’t see, storing them away where she won’t have to see them.

“What is it about?” asks Jackie.

“It’s about ideals.” The Boss turns, gives her that uncanny look Jackie’d never seen replicated on another face. “Ideals, Jack -- what are yours?”

The Boss looks at her and looks at her but Jackie doesn’t think she’s all the way there. “I don’t know,” says Jackie. “I don’t suppose I’ve ever really given something like ideals a serious thought. To further knowledge, perhaps. To understand the world better. I don’t know if those ideas count as _ideals_ , though.”

“It’s about ideals,” says the Boss. “But -- but they’re --” She stops talking. Sits on the edge of the bed. Her hands are streaked with dirt, her clothes sully the mattress. She rests her arms on her thighs, hunched forward, and she looks so far away Jackie doesn’t know if she’ll ever reach her.

“Boss, are you alright?” asks Jackie, finally, after a moment of long silence. She moves closer to the Boss, puts a cautious hand on the Boss’s.  

The Boss looks at the ground. “I haven’t been alright in a long time. It’s a habit. But tomorrow, I’ll put this away and be the person my country has asked me to be, for a little while longer. “

The way the Boss is talking, Jackie almost feels like she’s talking to herself, or someone Jackie can’t see, not to her. “It’s comforting from a certain angle. Putting yourself away and bringing out someone else, being that person instead. There’s a security to the inward division.”

The Boss looks at her again, and seems closer, maybe, hazy but focused. “Not that you would know,” she says, and she touches Jackie’s face with her grimy hands, and Jackie feels a shiver run down her spine, the same way she feels every time the Boss touches her. “You are only ever completely and totally yourself, Jack.”

  
  
  



End file.
